


My Bad Boy

by fangi



Series: Bad, Broken, Bruising [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Demons, Angst, Demonic Possession, Hints at noncon, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 01:04:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6173938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangi/pseuds/fangi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Every single light is on in the flat. The blinds are closed, the door is locked. The television is blaring some cooking show—static that fills up the space more than he can, and he’s silent, curled up in on himself on the couch, his laptop burning his thighs. Phil has been gone for two days, and Dan's hands are already shaking, just a little bit. That scares him more than it should."</p><p>Phil comes home. Dan's not himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i

**Author's Note:**

> Demon!Verse. Prequel to My Broken Boy but you don’t have to read it first or anything like that. Very very mildly inspired to do the creepy by Georgie’s A Trick of the Light
> 
> Read it on Tumblr: http://fangi-thoughts.tumblr.com/post/68222104570/my-bad-boy-13

 

Every single light is on in the flat. The blinds are closed, the door is locked. The television is blaring some cooking show—static that fills up the space more than he can, and he’s silent, curled up in on himself on the couch, his laptop burning his thighs. Phil has been gone for two days, and his hands are already shaking, just a little bit, and that scares him more than it should.

_“Are you okay?”_

“Yeah, Phil, I’m fine, I’m fine, I can take care of myself. You should be doing fun vacation things.”

_“It’s not as much fun without you here.”_

“I miss you.”

_“I miss you too, Dan.”_

And they say their goodbyes, and Phil goes back to having fun in Florida, and Dan turns the speakers of his laptop up as loud as they will go, and tries to ignore the weird feeling creeping up his throat.

He falls asleep on the couch, wrapped up in Phil’s (their) duvet, his laptop open on the coffee table.

.

He’s not sure if it’s the crash or how cold he’s suddenly feeling that wakes him up, but either way he’s on his feet and nothing looks out of place but he’s breathing so hard he can’t even see straight. He scours the flat and peeks under the beds and sums up all of his courage to peer over the edge of the bathtub.

Nothing is there.

Nothing has tipped over in the kitchen, all of the doors and windows are intact, and he must be going crazy. It’s the loneliness, he tells himself. He’s looking for reasons to call someone over.

“You’re okay, Dan.”

_“But are you, though?”_

And he screams and turns around and _nothing is there holy shit nothing is there_

He’s five seconds from bolting, this isn’t just a nightmare what the fuck what the fuck is going on and then the lights are flickering and his feet don’t even touch the ground by the time he is at the front door. He doesn’t care that he doesn’t have his keys or shoes or phone or laptop and it’s raining and _fuck that_ but the door won’t open and he is panicking, sweating, breathe, Dan, breathe, and the rattling of the door handle as he tugs and tugs is the only thing that he can hear.

He jumps at a **_clang_** way too close behind him, and it takes everything in him but he manages to slowly turn around.

All he can see is the vent on the wall slowly swinging back and forth, back and forth.

He slides down the door and finally loses it, hot tears running down his cheeks, because whatever sick joke this is it isn’t _funny._ He throws his face in his hands and tries to breathe, breathe, _shit_ , breathe, his shoulders shaking, his whole body tense.

Then the room goes cold, but by the time he looks up, it’s too late.

.

Phil hails a taxi at exactly 3:14 PM, and probably should’ve screamed when he looks inside, but only jumps.

“Dan!”

“Heya, Phil.”

And it’s weird, yeah, that his boyfriend just kind of _is there_ and _just so happens_ to be in the same taxi that he called for, but he chalks it up to Dan planning this all out very deviously, and Phil isn’t quite sure how to feel. They make small talk on the way back to the flat, and Phil talks about how nice it is to see the sun once in a while (since, as per usual, it is raining in the good old UK like it has been for the past two days) and Dan just smirks and laughs and does Dan things.

(Phil ignores the way Dan’s gripping his knee or the way his voice kind of _changes_ sometimes, but Dan is usually strange after they’ve been separated, so this shouldn’t feel different.)

They arrive at the flat and Dan carries Phil’s suitcase for him—“Such a gentleman!” “Aren’t I always?”—and they stand in the elevator in comfortable silence. Dan leads him inside, sets down his suitcase, and kisses him hard in the doorway.

(Today, Dan tastes less like cinnamon and more like ash.)

.

They’re laying tangled up in sheets and Phil can’t take it anymore. Four days he’s waited. He’s got a pulling in his stomach and it won’t go away so he rolls over and faces Dan, but doesn’t touch him.

“Are you okay?”

Dan leans forward and his face is very Dan but Phil’s throat tightens.

Dan’s chapped lips are on Phil’s ear and Phil is shaking.

“Just _peachy._ ”

And everything goes downhill from there.

.

Chris and PJ are at the door for an obligatory I-Haven’t-Seen-You-In- _Ages_ -Let’s-Make-A-Video-And-Order-Pizza friend date and Phil just smiles when he opens the door.

“Where’s Dan?”

“Just in his bedroom, he’ll be out in a bit. You know how he gets.”

Both boys brush off the way Phil’s voice cracks and Phil pulls the collar of his shirt tighter around his neck.

The afternoon fades into night and the video is done and the pizza is gone and Dan lets out a loud yawn. PJ and Chris are on their feet and stretching—“oh, it’s pretty late, maybe we should—” “It’s been really good seeing you two, but—” —and they’ve already started putting their shoes on.

Phil gets up too. “I’ll walk you out.”

Dan stays on the couch.

Phil walks them to the opening to the lift, and then Chris’s hand is on his shoulder. “What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?” He knows his voice is weak, and maybe he’s shaking now that watchful eyes aren’t on him, but he’s trying, at least.

“ _Phil.”_

“You wouldn’t believe me, I don’t even believe it myself, I keep waking up thinking it will all have just been some horrible nightmare and it isn’t and I don’t know what to think anymore—”

Peej’s hand is on him too, now. “Phil, we’ll believe you, just tell us what’s going on.”

“I shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“He’ll hear.”

“He’s still in your flat, Phil. Tell us what’s going on.”

And Phil just starts talking and he can’t stop himself, and encounters of black eyes and sharp teeth and _I wonder what your soul tastes like_ are spilling from his trembling lips, and he doesn’t know what to call it, doesn’t know what to say to them to make it okay because it isn’t it isn’t it isn’t and he doesn’t know what to do and he just—“You have to help me, I can’t—”

And Chris and PJ promise and hug him, whispering words he can’t really hear. “Stay safe. We’ll figure something out.” Chris nods.

Phil bids them goodbye and waits until the doors are closing before he walks away, and he’s shaking with fear and anticipation and he’s never said anything before, was specifically told not to tell anyone, and his fingers are cold and his cheeks are raw and he is so so scared.

A noise sounds from behind him, and he stops walking stops seeing stops breathing because all he can hear is this horrible screeching sound, metal on metal, and he knows what’s happening and there’s nothing he can do about and then he hears the crash. Someone screams way down below on the ground floor.

He’s falling to his knees and there is a voice in his ear. _“You shouldn’t have told them.”_ Sharp teeth scrape the sensitive skin on his neck and draw blood and _when did he get here_ and tears burn his face. _“You’ve been a bad, bad boy.”_

Doors slam around him and people are yelling and an alarm goes off and the world tilts to the side and falls into darkness.

.

He wakes up in bed and he’s honestly _—honestly—_ surprised his clothes are still on. There are possessive arms on his waist and he turns over to see black eyes, and he knows that pretending is over.

“What did you do?”

His voice is dead. He isn’t surprised. Nothing really surprises him anymore.

“Fixed your mistake, babe. I told you not to tell anyone.” Dan’s face is close and he’s whispering now. “ _But you blatantly disobeyed. I had to punish you_ somehow, _sweetcheeks._ ”

Phil’s shaking again and he grips at the sheets and tries to move away and Chris and PJ are dead and

The possessive hands pull him closer.

He stops breathing.

“What are you?”

“I believe your kind call me a demon.”

“What have you done with Dan?”

“Silly boy,” and the face is the same and the voice is the same but the words and the expression and Phil can barely see he is trembling so violently and, “I _am_ Dan. Or I might as well be.”

“What does that mean?” He’s desperate, and he sounds it, but there is no point in trying to sound strong as this monster know how weak he really is.

“Take your guess.”

And Dan gets up and leaves Phil alone with nothing but his thoughts, and a sob rips through the silence.

.

.

 


	2. ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil is surviving. Surviving and missing and constantly feeling like he's going to puke up whatever bile is left inside of him. He tries breathing. It doesn't help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read it on Tumblr: http://fangi-thoughts.tumblr.com/post/69649072615/my-bad-boy-23

"Pack a bag."

Phil's eyes shoot from the floor--he still isn't used to that tone in Dan's voice, that commanding sound. Dan's voice is soft, borderline timid, always there on the edge of a joke, that social awkwardness he tries so hard not to have, afraid he'll make someone angry. Then again, it doesn't take much to convince Phil every morning that _that_ isn't his Dan.

"Are we going somewhere?" His voice is tired.

"We're leaving."

Phil doesn't even question. He finds the energy somewhere inside of him to get up and pack necessities, and he stuffs it all into a small book bag he forgot he owned. He isn't sure if they'll be back or if he'll ever see London again and he should _care, damn it_.

But he doesn't.

He follows Dan out the door without looking back.

.

The train seats are scratchy and his jeans cling to the fabric. People are talking but it’s all white noise and Phil listens to the click-clack of the train tracks.

Click-clack.

Click-clack.

The train pulls through a tunnel and everything is dark and Phil keeps his eyes glued to the window.

Click-clack.

Click-clack.

_“We will be reaching…”_

Phil watches the countryside go by and tries to ignore the image in the glass that is less than human.

.

They end up in a hamlet way down south somewhere, with a total of maybe fifteen houses and an old empty lot of weeds and dying trees, just off of Cheshire Street. Dan leads him to an old shack of a house that is on the dead end part of Broad where the road just stops. The house is something the average eye would just glance over, nothing special, closer to the end of falling apart, but when Phil walks inside, part of him cares more than he'd like to admit.

The inside is elegant, well furnished, warm. Velvet curtains, plush carpets. A fire crackles in the sitting room. Dan walks by and slides a finger under Phil's chin. Phil flinches as his teeth clack together.

He soon realizes that the bag was pointless, as there is a closet in the bedroom full of clothes he could never afford. The sheets are made of silk.

.

The townspeople quit discussing "the strange boys that moved into the old Bradford house" almost as soon as they started.

.

Phil has taken to sitting in front of the second-story window that overlooks the cornfield behind the house. The winter frost paints the glass pane in swirling whites. The fields outside grow barren. The closet has new sweaters in it, one day.

Phil tries not to remember chapped lips and snow angels, cold finger tips and too big sweaters, and it hurts damn it _burns_ and he wants answers and he wants to know why but he can't stop the fear crawling up his throat whenever he opens his mouth and for all he knows _Dan could never come back_.

Not that thing. Not the demon. _Dan_.

Phil bites his lip and curls in on himself, and cold fingers are suddenly on his shoulders and Phil’s entire body is the snow outside and he tries to stop shaking because Dan doesn’t _like_ that and there are teeth on his neck and the bite mark is bleeding and he forces himself to breathe and go through the motions like he does every day.

.

_“Dan!”_

_“I hope you’re saying that because it’s my name,_ sweetheart _, because he’s_ _gone.”_

.

He’s gripping silk sheets in trembling fingers because he woke up with a thought that could destroy him.

Break him more than he’s already broken. Kill him, at the very least.

There are words burned into his skin from the night before that he can’t shake, he can’t stop thinking about and it’s the end, this is it, he knows it.

_“He’s gone.”_

Phil is planning and he isn’t even trying, it’s all just coming to him, he’s going to _leave_ it’s the only thing left and if he can get out he’ll be gone, he’ll be _gone_ and he’s laughing and crying and shaking so hard he can’t see straight and Dan is _gone._ His Dan, the beautiful shy boy that doesn’t laugh enough in public and thinks he’s being annoying all of the time but has the brightest smile Phil has ever experienced, and has this way of doing just the right thing and has this _look_ that Phil knows is just for him, and makes him feel complete.

All of that, gone.

_Gone._

Phil is halfway to the door when Dan walks in.

The eyebrows raise. “Going somewhere?”

 _No Just downstairs I’m leaving No Of course not I’m leaving Just walking around Where would I go? I’m leaving I’m leaving I’m leaving_ Phil takes in a shaky breath and pushes out a “No.”

But Dan is in his face now and he’s being pushed backwards and there is a rough hand on both of his wrists and a dark voice in his ear and a spike of cold shoots down his spine as hot breath echoes out, “Really? I think you’re _lying._ ” The hand squeezes tighter and his arms are above his head, now. His back hits the wall and there is a leg between his own and he stops breathing as coal-black stares straight at him. Nimble fingers work at the buttons on his shirt. “I think you were going to leave and never come back.” The voice isn’t playful, and Phil squeaks when the fingernails draw blood and teeth latch onto his jawline with no intention other than pain. “You bad, _bad_ boy.”

The free hand digs a line into Phil’s chest where they aren’t flush together—Phil’s back pushes as far back into the wall as he can make it, but it isn’t far enough, and he struggles for the first time in a long time. The hand latches onto his throat and he’s bleeding and bruising and _shit_ _he can’t breathe_ and he can see the intent in the black staring right back at him. The hand moves and so does he and he’s falling and he lands in a heap on the bed. Footsteps follow him, and he squeezes his eyes shut.

.

In the morning, he wakes up in the middle of nowhere.

.

.


	3. iii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He just wants a little bit of normal. That's all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://fangi-thoughts.tumblr.com/post/71461381638/my-bad-boy-33

 

Phil Lester is cold and shivering and confused and hurting when he raises a red-tinted fist up to the door of the first house he finds.

(He’s walked for hours)

(Or at least it feels like it)

The girl who opens the door ends up changing his life.

When he looks back on it now, he wonders if it was fate that put him on her doorstep—people being drawn together was something he used to believe in, after all.

(And other times, he convinces himself it was a meddling demon, but those are the bad nights)

.

He ends up staying with her, in a way that wasn’t really planned or talked about and he had nowhere to go and she never discussed when he was leaving and he stays on her couch for way longer than usual people take others’ hospitality. She asks him if he’d like spare bedroom.

So he lives with her now, he guesses. And it’s weird because he has no answers for her, can’t explain why he was in the middle of a snowy field at ten AM and trudged through two feet of snow and nearly froze and he doesn’t know _why_ and he can’t tell her anything because she’d kick him out in a heartbeat, and eventually she stops asking.

He doesn’t love her.

But maybe they’re friends, of sorts.

Her eyes are pastel green and she is paler than him, almost, and her hair is fiery and freckles dust her cheek and she doesn’t have dimples and her entire body shakes when she laughs. There is no denying she’s beautiful.

There’s also no denying she’s the exact opposite of everything he’s trying to forget.

There is nothing familiar about her, and he clings to that.

.

When she kisses him for the first time, his eyes slide closed and he imagines warm browns and chapped lips and sort of hates himself for it (but he doesn’t hate himself enough to stop her, and he wonders when he changed and started being so selfish).

.

He doesn’t love her, but he tells her he does, for her sake.

.

Phil Lester is twenty-seven years old and two years of his life are marked out in inky sharpie to everyone except him and the shadows at night. He’s always been bad at pretending but he’s gotten better at lying (and he doesn’t want to think about why or who he could’ve picked that up from and _shit he’s thinking again_ ) about everything and anything and it seems like maybe his whole life is sort of a lie right now, but that’s okay, because he’s alive, and he’s sort of normal, and that’s all he could’ve asked for, honestly.

Normal.

He’s experiencing _normal_ things again.

Normal things like picking up on a Saturday morning and driving to the country and going on a picnic with his girlfriend—and he honestly doesn’t like calling her that because he’s lying lying lying but it’s okay, breathe, Phil, breathe, normal, normal, _normal_ —and if it starts raining on the way out there, then hell, they just have terrible luck.

He could’ve told her a long time ago he's never had anything but bad luck, but he doesn’t want to see that face she gets when he talks like that because she wants answers he doesn’t have and _shit_.

She’s laughing and wants to go despite the rain and maybe there’ll be a shelter somewhere or maybe they’ll just be in the rain and for the first time, the very first time, Phil think he might be able to learn to love this girl.

And that’s when he sees it, the figure standing in the rain.

For a moment, all he hears are breaks screeching and tires skidding and he can’t see anything but the image a familiar figure is burned into his brain and he can’t he can’t he can’t

.

The call it a “mechanical failure,” because the car flipping should’ve never happened. There’s a dent in the front like they rammed something but there wasn’t anything there and it’s something that is legally brushed under the rug because just like Phil they have no answers.

The doctors pull him to the side and calmly let him know that he should be dead, but he isn’t, oh, and also, there’s a good chance she won’t wake up, here are the medical expenses, have a nice night.

.

Phil Lester is twenty-seven years old, and his entire (fake fake fake) world is crashing around him, and maybe, just maybe, he’s a little too desperate with his need to pretend.

And before he knows it, he’s standing on Broad Street with an intent he doesn’t try to overthink because, shit, it’s his fault, isn’t it, that she’s like this? And he can fix it, he can, but there’s only one way he can think of and it’s a bad bad bad idea but right now his throat is full of regret and his veins are pumping adrenaline and somehow he just ends up standing in the rain in front of the lot where there used to be weeds and _apparently_ no one that lives here thinks it’s _strange_ that a Victorian-style mansion just showed up one day and replaced the old shack that used to be there. The old man that lives down the street is peering out of his blinds and watching Phil like he’s never been there before.

Phil pushes on the rod-iron gates anyway. A loud clap of thunder shakes his bones as the metal creaks and he splashes his way through puddles on cobblestone. His jeans cling and he’s freezing and he doesn’t care he just wants this nightmare _over._

And if it ends and he’s not in it anymore, well, that’s just something that happens, isn’t it?

He walks up the stairs and he’s shivering and the door opens before he can even knock and there’s a hand on his shoulder and he’s being dragged inside and the door slams almost as hard as his back does when he hits the wall, and there’s a set of eyes staring into his that he’d hoped he would never see again.

(That he’d come back to willingly)

The voice is in his ear, right up against the tender skin, breath hot, teeth sharp, “You’re back.”

The sound isn’t desperate, it’s mocking, and Phil knows that Dan knew, he _knew_ but Phil knew that before he walked up here (there’s the picture of a figure in his mind, a body standing in the rain, and it’s dark and evil and _grinning_ but it could’ve been a trick of the light, maybe).

And Phil doesn’t say anything and there’s a knee between his legs and shit he knew this was going to happen, too, Phil _knew_ and he ignored it and he’s not sure if it’s because he’s reckless or it’s something else and the mouth bites down on his neck, then, and he can’t stop the tiny little gasp that comes from his lips and it’s over, from there.

.

Phil says, “You know why I’m here.”

And Dan says, “I do.”

And Phil says, “Then you’ll do it.”

And Dan grabs onto black hair and digs his nails into Phil’s scalp and says, “Not without a price.”

.

Phil remembers a series of people he never questioned, coming in and out of the house over the course of two years, and he remembers wondering why they looked so different when they left.

He realizes that maybe the eyes are, in fact, a window to the soul, and once it’s gone, there’s a darkness there that can be seen, a change in posture, aspirations, emotions, motivations.

Gone.

He thinks about one-hit wonders that OD’d before their career got anywhere and about people who win contests that are never heard of again and of people who are maybe seeking attention or maybe they’re seeking feeling anything at all and he wonders if maybe they want to be normal, too. And maybe they’re so desperate for normalcy (or maybe being something more than normal, being something different something more than mediocre to have something worth being _alive_ for) that they’re willing to give up what makes them standard in the first place.

He walks out of the house. It’s still raining. He doesn’t care.

.

When he gets back to the hospital, there’s a note on her bed on top of a hospital gown that is folded up in a neat little square, and the handwriting is in cursive and neat and the ink was given time to dry and when he reads it, it doesn’t even hurt, and he’s not really sure why. Generally when people tell him to go fuck himself, it’s all his fault, mail him his bags whenever he finds someone else to mooch off of, he would be upset, and it’s the strangest feeling because he isn’t.

He’s not upset at all.

He puts the note down and walks back out of the room, out of the hospital, out onto the street and into the rain and it _hits_ him, hard, right in his stomach and he falls to his knees and his eyes water and he’s not even upset about _her_ all he can think of is normal and it’s gone it’s gone and he’s back to where he started in the cold and he’s lost and he’s got nowhere to go and then it’s gone. The tears are gone and he stands up again and he is _empty empty empty._

.

He finds a hotel and pretends like he’s going to pay and he does his research, sort of. And he looks up things like possession and what happens to souls if they’re taken and he doesn’t find much but there are some things that he finds hard not believing, and suddenly, he is angry. So angry, _fucking_ angry, angry and desperate enough that he could take on a bear or a hurricane or a _spawn of motherfucking Satan and_

Phil shoves away from the table and he does just that.

.

The rain has cleared by the time the house is in view.

 


End file.
